http://lauren.vortex.com/ en-us lauren@vortex.com 2013-05-24T10:50:33-08:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001034.html Oh boy. The "Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property" has released its long awaited report, and it's 90 or so pages of doom, gloom, and the bizarre -- including one section that had me almost literally doing a... 1034@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-24T10:50:33-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001033.html I've never been quite sure what it is about the Net that tends to bring out, amplify, and exacerbate the cruel, infantile, and snarky side of so many people, including persons who really, seriously should know better. Perhaps they get... 1033@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-23T12:58:04-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001032.html By now you've likely heard that Tumblr is selling itself to Yahoo for just over a billion bucks in cash. Oh wait, excuse me, that's Tumblr. -- officially, there's a period after Tumblr, a flourish added to the current vogue... 1032@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-20T17:09:01-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001031.html I hadn't planned on writing anything about this, but watching the continuing stream of obnoxious snarking -- both in blogs and some mainstream media -- following Larry Page's appearance at the end of Wednesday's "Google I/O" keynote, my irritation level... 1031@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-19T08:56:40-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001030.html Newt Gingrich Meets the Smartphone (Annotated Edition) (YouTube / 3 minutes) --Lauren--... 1030@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-11T22:17:17-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001029.html Regular readers here and in other venues will know by now that I am a very strong supporter of gun control legislation (now more popularly called "gun safety" regulation for political correctness). Not only that, I consider the NRA and... 1029@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-09T17:40:26-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001028.html When you're basically a techie who thinks a lot about policy -- as I am -- there's a natural tendency to approach issues specifically and individually, like bugs to be stamped out of complex program code. Frankly, it's also easier... 1028@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-09T10:41:59-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001027.html Search Like a Spook! - NSA's Guide to Web Research! Just declassified! Not a joke! How to "hack" search engines like a government agent! Seriously, this 600+ page PDF, which NSA just released under a FOIA request, is 100% legit.... 1027@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-08T13:17:02-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001026.html You may have heard by now that Adobe, long-time manufacturer of Photoshop and related software products, has finally brought out the big hammer, and smashed it down firmly on the heads of individuals and small businesses. What? You haven't heard... 1026@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-06T20:56:49-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001025.html You may have heard buzzing by now that the talking heads of cable news are all aflutter over comments (on CNN) by a "former FBI counterterrorism agent" implying that the federal government is recording all domestic telephone calls, and need... 1025@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-04T13:25:46-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001024.html By now you've probably heard the story of 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot in (you almost could guess this) the once great but now poster child for government mediocrity state of Florida. When she mixed a couple of chemicals together as an... 1024@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-05-02T14:58:09-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001023.html When you really think about the stranglehold that the dominant ISPs have on Internet access services here in the USA, it's easy to be concerned, upset, or even angry. In the past when folks felt this way, protest songs were... 1023@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-04-28T17:10:00-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001022.html Are you ready for the imagery war -- the war against personal photography and capturing of video? You'd better be. The title of this piece actually isn't entirely accurate. In some ways, this war isn't just coming, it's already begun.... 1022@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-04-27T10:28:53-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001021.html Frankly, I was expecting such a call, and sure enough it arrived yesterday. A reporter for a significant media outlet wanted my opinion on the thesis that YouTube and other video sites should be self-censored and/or censored by governments to... 1021@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-04-23T13:32:21-08:00 http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001020.html A couple of days ago on my Google+ feed, I mentioned that this has been one of those weeks where I've really felt that I've been channeling Mr. Spock. This generated an immediate comment from one of my regular followers,... 1020@http://lauren.vortex.com/ 2013-04-21T10:59:47-08:00